Victoria 2026: The Election Where All Sorts Of Things Can Happen!

Victoria Aggregate Labor 26.0 Coalition 27.3 Green 12.8 One Nation 23.7 others 10.3
(polls are probably underestimating "others" vote)
2PP estimate 52.0 to Coalition vs ALP, shadow-2PP ALP 50.1 vs One Nation

Currently Coalition would be likely to govern in minority with One Nation support, with One Nation seat tally around the mid-teens

One Nation and Labor seat numbers are highly dependent on Coalition preferencing decisions

Both major parties are still capable of majority government with a modest swing from current primaries

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It's been forever - largely because of the amount of work I had on in the first half of the year - since the last time I looked at Victorian state polling in the leadup to this year's election in any depth but finally a good time to do so has arrived.  What I see, at the moment, is a picture with a lot of possibilities.  Arguments can be made on current polling that the Allan Labor Government, while currently behind, is not far from surviving.  Arguments can also be made that it is not far from losing the election so badly that it may not even be the second party.  For now this is a really difficult election to model - much harder than South Australia - but perhaps by polling day things will get a lot clearer.  This one is a rather mathsy modelling article that has been rated 3/5 on the Wonk Factor scale.  

One thing I cannot stress enough is that this looks like being the first Australian election for a long time where how to vote cards really matter.  At elections in recent decades how to vote cards have been vastly overhyped, especially by media, given that only about a third of voters follow them, and those who do follow them are mostly major party voters whose preferences are rarely distributed in competitive seats.  Furthermore among Greens voters the 15% or so who follow them would probably nearly all preference Labor above the Coalition even if the card said otherwise, so it's not clear that Green how to votes have any real impact these days on the two-party picture at all.  

But on current polling it could be that one major party or the other will be eliminated in close to two thirds of seats.  And at that point whether or not the Coalition recommends preferences to One Nation ahead of Labor will have a huge impact on what would currently be dozens of ALP/One Nation contests. This week saw the release of a Trades Hall Redbridge MRP poll where off 27% of the vote and based on preferences nominated by respondents, One Nation wins only 12 seats.  I am certain that if One Nation's vote is really that high and the Coalition recommends preferences to them, they will be winning many, many more.   But I don't think One Nation's vote is that high now, let alone whether they can hold it to the election.

Recent Polling

The Trades Hall Redbridge MRP (or is it Redbridge-Accent?) with a sample size of around 6500 raised some mysteries since it is unclear to me if it is fully independent of the AFR poll conducted June 17-28 with a sample size of 5516.  The primary vote figures of both have One Nation on 27 and both majors on 26.  The Greens primary in the Trades Hall poll was reported by The Australian as 12, however that was alongside Others on 8, and Redbridge normally forces the sum to 100.  The AFR has reported the Greens primary as 13 in an article on the Trades Hall poll, which is also what was in the AFR poll.  No dates for the Trades Hall poll have been reported anywhere (many people decided it must be fresh polling when it was reported on July 14, but with commissioned polling this is frequently not the case).  Unless advised otherwise I'll be assuming these two samples overlap.  In any case, I'm not considering the Trades Hall poll in estimating voting intention, as it is a union poll and there is plenty of public polling to go on.

I see again no need to resummarise poll data summarised elsewhere but there have been five recent public polls - the monster AFR Redbridge, two Resolves, one DemosAU and a Freshwater.  The DemosAU is an outlier with the Coalition leading Labor on primaries by nine points while Freshwater has the lead at four and the other three have the two major parties tied.  My own rough aggregate of this polling is Labor 26.0 Coalition 27.3 Green 12.8 One Nation 23.7 others 10.3, which I estimate at a classical two-party preferred of 52.0 to Coalition.  Bludgertrack has Labor 26.8 Coalition 27.1 Green 12.5 ON 23.0 others 10.6 with a 2PP of only 50.1 to Coalition.  Estimating 2PPs is difficult at the moment because One Nation has affected the nature of the "others" pool compared to past elections (meaning that a true last-election flow is not a sensible concept) so it's possible Labor gets a somewhat better overall flow than I think.  

Even my 2PP may sound like that's not too bad for Labor if One Nation is all a weird dream and the election behaves normally.  On a uniform swing basis the 2022 election produced a very skewed pendulum where even that 7% swing takes out only eleven of the 56 seats Labor won in 2022, leaving them with 45/88, a majority.  But there is always a level of effectively random variation in seat swings on top of cases where one party just outcampaigns the other in the marginals, and on top of personal vote effects, and in this case it's important to look just above the waterline implied by that swing.  Labor have five seats on between 7% and 8% and a further nine between 8% and 9%, but only three between 4% and 5% and three between 6% and 7%.  So if it really is 52-48 to Coalition the Coalition is going to win the 2PP in some of the Labor seats that would not fall by uniform swing, and indeed on my usual seat model Labor only wins the 2PP in an expected 43.3 seats after considering personal vote effects, and that includes an expected 3.9 2PP wins in seats held by the Greens.  That's only just a loss on average, but it gets worse.

The Redbridge MRP has the Coalition winning a median of 39 seats, Labor 35, One Nation 12 and Greens 2.  For their 2PP (53-47 to Coalition) that number of Labor 2PP wins (37) is pretty similar to what my model expects (it has 39.7 2PP wins).  But Labor would not do even that well in a real election where the Coalition recommended preferences to One Nation.  

I have remodelled the primaries from the Redbridge MRP based on how I would expect preferences to flow on this assumption.  Before I do this, a reminder that of course I know MRPs are not accurate on all specific seats and are designed to gauge an overall picture (One Nation for example will not be getting 18% in Northcote!).  I also think that Redbridge(/Accent) are underestimating the Others vote in general, in places considerably (I mentioned some of this issue here).  But anyway I find the following differences:

* Thanks to weak respondent preference flows from the Coalition, Redbridge has Labor beating One Nation in Greenvale, Kalkallo, Mill Park, Cranbourne, Narre Warren North, Sydenham, Lara, Macedon, Frankston and Carrum.   I have all of these on Redbridge's numbers as wins to One Nation, though nearly all of them by 2% or less.

* Redbridge has Bundoora and Essendon as Liberal gains from Labor, I have them on Redbridge's numbers as Labor retains.

* Redbridge has Prahran with primaries of Labor 26 Liberal 26 Green 25 One Nation 16 (nah) and others 7 as a win to Labor.  We have seen this movie many many times and when One Nation preferences split three ways between Labor, Liberal and Green, the Greens will get more of them than Labor (this even recently happened off a highish One Nation vote in Heysen SA).  Even if they didn't the Others vote in Prahran usually has an Animal Justice component.  So Labor would be eliminated and the Greens would win the seat.

* Redbridge has Gippsland East, Lowan and Ovens Valley as Coalition wins; I have them as One Nation wins on their numbers.  (Again, I am not saying any of this actually happens, just that it is my reading of what would happen on these primaries).  

So instead of Redbridge's 39-35-12-2, under this assumption of the Coalition recommending preferences to One Nation I get 34-26-25-3.  At which point Labor are on the edge of falling into third place in the party seat total - though if One Nation were willing to even momentarily provide supply and confidence while Labor were not, such a case might require rethinking the usual "most seats" convention for who the Opposition is.  

I should note also that the Greens winning anything but Prahran on Redbridge's numbers would be contingent on the Liberals recommending preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor.  Ted Baillieu's decision not to do this in 2010 was so well received that it arguably got the Liberals just over the line for their victory that year, and the Liberals' reversal on that score in 2022 seemed like a shallow grovel for a hung parliament.  In the different political landscape around the Israel/Palestine and antisemitism issues since October 2023 a Liberal decision to again recommend to the Greens just to make Labor fight in a handful of seats would seem like a massive free kick for One Nation. So maybe Labor would get Richmond and Melbourne then (again, this is only off Redbridge's numbers, I am not saying that they are accurate!)

What if One Nation isn't so high?

My reworking of the Redbridge MRP is what I call the "hybrid vigour" scenario.  Labor isn't badly losing the two-party race against either the Coalition or One Nation but they get smashed in seat terms overall because of seats where they would beat the Coalition head to head but One Nation is in the final two and beating them instead.  (This applies on my numbers to seven of the seats where Redbridge has Labor winning - in Frankston, Carrum and Macedon my numbers have them narrowly losing the 2PP as well).  On Redbridge's respondent preferences One Nation can dislodge the Liberals in a seat that is a close 2PP battle but the flows to One Nation are so much weaker that Labor wins the seat much more easily.  But in South Australia this didn't happen.  We saw some seats where One Nation was actually competitive that the Liberals never get near winning - and that was against a very popular first-term Premier not a 12-year old government headed by a Premier with some of the worst personal ratings we have seen.

But also, Redbridge tends to get One Nation on the high side compared to other pollsters (this is a long-running thing) and my aggregate has them lower.  When I rescale Redbridge's sample to my own two-party estimates (I get Labor leading One Nation 50.1-49.9, compared to One Nation leading 51.2-48.8 if I use Redbridge's primaries) Labor now saves South Barwon and Eltham from the Liberals and Greenvale, Mill Park, Cranbourne, Narre Warren North and Lara from One Nation, while the Coalition now on my estimates by uniform swing off Redbridge's seat primaries beats One Nation in Berwick, Bendigo East, Gippsland East and Ovens Valley for a total of Coalition 36 seats Labor 33 One Nation 16 and Greens 3.  

Australian Election Forecasts (which was outstandingly accurate in South Australia) currently has a nowcast with midpoints of Coalition 37 Labor 30 One Nation 13 Greens 5 (the totals of their midpoints aren't forced to 88, so the majors would probably get one or two more) off primaries of Coalition 28.1 Labor 25.2 One Nation 22.1 Green 12.7 others 11.8 - a pretty similar outlook to my best remodelling of the Redbridge MRP above off primaries that are slightly better for the Coalition and worse for One Nation. Their forecast is that One Nation will come down a little bit more by election day.  I also want to mention a new and very thoroughly considered modelling site The Swing Is On which off primaries of Coalition 27 Labor 25.5 One Nation 25 Greens 12.8 others 9.7 has 37-33-13-5. 

Overall, it seems that if One Nation does get 27% and the Coalition recommends preferences to them, then they should get a pile of seats and not just the dozen in the Redbridge median estimate.  But what I am seeing here both in my own reworking of the Redbridge primaries and in the other modelling being produced is that when the One Nation vote drops from there to the 23-25 range those are falling off rapidly.  They're still doing much better than in South Australia but South Australia had Labor on a much bigger primary.  An objection I often see is that One Nation still have no candidates and how will they win seats anywhere where their candidates are nobodies.  But if this is a systematic issue then their vote will be somewhat lower.  Candidate effects only go so far and some little-known One Nation candidates were able to win in South Australia.

At some point I may also produce my own model of the party vote shares, using such things as past One Nation primaries (though the upper house primary in 2022 was so low with so many competing similar parties that it's not a great guide) and demographic indicators.  That would also allow for taking into account personal votes, as it seems to me that in South Australia the personal votes of some of the Liberal incumbents enabled them to hold seats that should otherwise have fallen, especially against One Nation.  One Nation could do particularly well in vacant seats since there is no "politics is stuffed but my local member is a good sort" kind of sentiment.

Can Labor win on both flanks?

I'm going to assume that if Labor and the Greens win 44 seats combined then they still govern; somebody would crack.  So from the numbers I have off the Redbridge MRP poll (my preference flows but its primaries) Labor needs to do enough to win 15 more.  And it turns out that with a uniform 2CP swing back of 2.75% they would do this.  That corresponds to a primary vote swing of about 3% to Labor if it comes fairly evenly off the Coalition and One Nation.  So, while things look bad for Labor on the primaries in current polling, it's possible they can retain government with a primary vote as low as 29% - but only if the split between the Coalition and One Nation stays.  If One Nation's primary falls and the Coalition's rises then this is no longer possible, because the Coalition's 2PP will rise in the classic Labor vs Coalition seats, and there will be more such seats as One Nation is increasingly knocked out in third.

In South Australia, One Nation's vote held up to its polling very well.  This may be different though; everybody knew who was winning that election and so protest voters were entirely free to vent.  In this case the Coalition may be able to drive the argument that this one really matters and that if you want to throw Labor out you shouldn't muck around with an unstable party.  

So let's also take this the other way, how close might the Coalition be to a majority?  I can find enough seats to get them there if I give them a 3.1% 2CP swing off my estimates off the Redbridge primaries in every seat.  It's a little trickier than that because a couple of them are Coalition-One Nation seats where a uniform Labor to Coalition swing isn't enough to beat One Nation, and above that 3.1% the winnable seats for the Coalition become scarce quickly.  But if the Coalition can get, say, 29.5% then that could be enough for them for a majority.  It's quite possible if the One Nation vote stays in the 20s that either major party can win outright if it can get its vote to 30.  Of course, this will leave precious little for the other one.  I am already seeing ads claiming that the Coalition cannot win alone and will require One Nation's support, but it is way, way, way too early to be sure that this is true.  

As it is possible at the moment for Labor to survive, it's also possible they get really, really smashed.  Redbridge had 25 seats as a lower bound on their numbers but if one imagines it is really 56-44 instead of 53-47, then Labor can be easily knocked below 20 seats.  I'm not really expecting that at this stage though; I think more likely if the Coalition win outright it will be because One Nation have not won a lot.

A final thing about the Redbridge model is that it seems to have Labor slightly underperforming in 2PP wins.  Perhaps this would happen as a result of uneven local swings.  However this was also widely expected in MRP style models for a while in the leadup to the 2025 federal election, and it ended up being not the case at all.  

I've previously mentioned the overall historic picture - 12 year old federally dragged governments tend to lose a lot of seat share, Premiers this unpopular who make it to elections have always lost, and governments that go to their third leader in the same term as would happen if Labor changed leaders have lost (usually heavily) except for a single case in the NT.  And with these historic priors I find it hard not to see the Coalition winning somehow.  But the split in the right and the soap-opera chaos of the current Opposition through this term raise questions as to whether the normal rules still apply.  

Is Group Ticket Voting Really On The Way Out In Victoria?

The last week has brought the encouraging news via both The Age and The Herald-Sun that Victorian Labor is preparing legislation to scrap Group Ticket Voting at the last possible chance before this year's election. According to the reports, the legislation will be brought in in the sitting week starting July 28, and would presumably pass both houses quickly in order to meet the VEC's August deadline.  

Let's hope this is finally it for all this nonsense!  I understand the smaller parties may be reluctant to vote for a new system under which their chances of winning any seats are greatly reduced for now thanks to the Bracks Government's entrenchment blunders, so I'll cut them slack so long as they refrain from making false claims in defence of their position.  But if any major party stands in the way or does nothing this time then there is no excuse for them not caring about democracy.  

To keep this originally well-intentioned but now discredited system would say that Victorians are second class voters who do not deserve the right to direct their own preferences as easily between parties as voters can in every other state that at least has an upper house.  It would say that it is less important that MLCs be accountable to the voters who elect them than that they be accountable to an unelected consultant who has openly admitted to coercing MLCs' votes on electoral reform with the threat of starving them of future preferences.  It would say that it is right that voters be presented with ballot papers flooded with dishonestly named parties that use catchy names to send the unwary elector's vote to the opposite place they would have wanted it to ever go.  To say these things by doing nothing at a time when conspiracy theories about Victoria's elections already thrive, at a time when faith in democracy is more than usually frayed in the West would be something we should never forgive nor forget.    

Alas at this stage there is still no official confirmation that the legislation is coming and no detail on its content (I have had further unofficial reports though that it is really happening), so I can't yet be sure that there isn't a catch.  One issue to be decided is whether the electoral system would be fully optional preferencing (the above the line voter is instructed to number from 1 to as many boxes as they like, as in NSW, SA and WA) or semi-optional (as in the Senate, the voter is instructed to number from in this case at least 1 to 5, though if they number fewer then their vote can still be saved).  Subject to ability to implement I'd strongly recommend the latter.  Preferences make more of a difference with 5-seat regions than with whole statewide electorates.

Scaremongering about One Nation has resurfaced but on current polling the Coalition and One Nation are for the moment well placed to win a combined majority of seats in the Council whether the system is changed or not.  The right is likely to win at least 23 of the 40 upper house seats unless Labor's position improves substantially or One Nation's vote collapses to the mid-teens or below. While group ticket voting might throw one or two of those undeservedly to the Shooters, DLP or, shudder, Family First, it currently looks unlikely that it would stop a Coalition/ON majority (or provide anything meaningfully better for the left in outcome terms if it did).  A quota-proportional system with or without GTV suits the right better on anything like current polling than a single-seat preferential one does, because the right is not losing nearly so many votes to leakage when one of One Nation or the Coalition is excluded.  

Labor, however, is at some risk of a seat tally nightmare if it keeps the current system, even if its vote improves a little on current polling.  Primary vote breakdowns of lower house support by upper house region released by Redbridge/Accent found the party's lower house support to be below two quotas in every region bar one. That is even though upper house Labor support under group ticket voting is typically lower than in the lower house, and even though Redbridge/Accent appear to be strikingly underestimating the lower house support base for "others" (parties and independents that are not Coalition, One Nation, Labor or Greens).  The most striking example of this apparent underestimation is that Redbridge/Accent have Others on 5% in Western Metropolitan, where Others polled 20.9% in 2022 with Victorian Socialists getting 5% by themselves!  

What the Redbridge/Accent poll is pointing to is a situation where Labor's second candidates could be so readily leapfrogged by minor parties even if they had most of a quota that Labor might conceivably scrape in in the lower house yet confront a Council where it held only eight or nine seats.  If GTV is abolished the less authentic minor parties may still run, but with no actual chance of winning they're unlikely to make as much effort and their preferences will splatter.  

It is not in the Coalition's interests to keep Group Ticket Voting either.  If GTV survives it is likely there will be micro-parties (and not just the obvious fake ones) sending preferences that would otherwise scatter to One Nation over them in what could be several races between the two for seats. This is yet another reason why the idea that Group Ticket Voting still especially disadvantages One Nation is delusional.   And there are also possibilities that minor right preference spirals for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers or others could displace the Coalition in some regions.  

Right-wing attention seekers linked to the Monica Smit/Avi Yemini fake parties push have been claiming victory following the reports.  The victory is not won, least of all by these blowins, until Group Ticket Voting is gone with the legislation to axe it given Royal Assent (and there could well be a pointless legal challenge too).  Also, I believe there has actually been a plan within Labor to scrap GTV at the last moment (so as to avoid getting crossbenchers offside earlier) for some time before their shenanigans.   

I am happy for any Victorian MPs or their staff who wish to talk to me about what is going on with this legislation or any aspect of modelling the upper house election in the leadup to the sitting week to contact me.  (Email address in sidebar.)

Deception Alley

I thought it would be worth noting just how many deceptively named party attempts are currently being made, and to track them to see how they go.  Unlike the Commonwealth, Victoria publishes the names of parties attempting to register before the applications have been fully checked, so the publication of a name as applying is no guarantee that the deceptively named party will be able to pass the 500 members test.  It only means a list has been submitted.  

I classify a party as deceptive based on any of the following:

- its name is known to cause or likely to cause confusion 

- its name is known or suspected to have been deliberately created so as to mislead about the party's purpose

- its name is apparently created to send Group Ticket preferences to a party alien to the party's apparent purpose

- it is applying for name changes between unrelated concepts 

- it is mimicking the name of a party popular overseas or an unrelated party elsewhere in Australia

This list is not necessarily exhaustive.

REGISTERED DECEPTIVE PARTIES

Democratic Labour Party (DLP) - once upon a time voters knew the difference between the DLP and the ALP on the ballot paper but these days it's evident that some don't

End Mass Immigration – Reform AU, nee Companions and Pets Party, applying to change to Christian Alliance Party – Reform AU

Freedom Party, applying to change name to Safety Victoria – Violent Crime Prevention

New Democrats, applying to change name to Put Australia First, Save The Environment

DECEPTIVE PARTIES SEEKING REGISTRATION

Climate Action Now (Smit/Yemini grouping)

Free Palestine (Smit/Yemini grouping, not to be confused with Free Palestine Party which is also seeking registration)

Fusion Party Victoria – Reignite Democracy (this is Fusion claiming they are stealing Monica Smit's slogan as a tit-for-tat but given this party has worked with Vern Hughes and have horrendous form on preference recommendations nobody should trust them or will care)

I’m Voting to Avoid the Fine (Smit/Yemini grouping)

The Republican Make Australia Great Again (name qualifies whatever the intention but see comments)

Several other deceptive party names including Muslim Votes Matter were being mooted but do not seem to have amounted to applications.  

Tasmania Redistribution: Announcement Day Live Thread

Today could be a momentous day in the history of Tasmanian electoral boundaries!  Or it could be a nothing-ever-happens.  Around mid-morning today there will be a boundary announcement.  If the announcement is either the same as the draft boundaries or only slightly different then that's it and the new boundaries will be official for federal elections after 8 October.  It usually takes several months for them to then be adopted at state level via legislation, so an early state election before, say, mid-2027 would not necessarily be on the new boundaries.  

Alternatively the Augmented Electoral Commission could recommend substantively different boundaries, which would result in further rounds of consultation.  I have seen no variations from process that would suggest there is any intent to do this so far, but I am not sure if that should be taken as a sign that it's not happening.  

My previous articles are here:

Clark Must Expand But Where?

Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide

The Reaction

Once the announcement is up I will be posting details of what has been decided.  I'm not Ben Raue or William Bowe so please do not expect new margin calculations from this source.  However I will have summaries and comments about the decision, whatever it is.  

10:25 It's up!  The original decision has been endorsed except that the following change has been recommended:

"Bass gains the Break O’Day local government area.

Lyons retains the Blackstone Heights and Prospect Vale localities."

This now means former Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman's original submission has been adopted in full!  The boundary changes are now final and the Franklin divide is dead! 

The Commission is proposing that Franklin become Tongerlongeter.  Submissions on the new name are open until 21 July with a public inquiry on 31 July.    The new name would tie Eden-Monaro and Capricornia for the most syllables in an electorate name and Kingsford-Smith for the most letters.

10:40  On the Break O'Day change the Commission has argued that putting Break O'Day in Bass better reflects community of interest considerations while keeping all LGAs in a single electorate. They have also argued that leaving Prospect Vale and Blackstone Heights counters a concern about Glenorchy being the only urban area in neo-Lyons.   I don't think that was much of a concern in the submissions, they were more concerned about Glenorchy dominating the rural portions of the seat.  

11:25 The placement of Break O'Day in Bass shifts one of the Shooters Fishers and Farmers' stronger areas into the seat, not great news for Carlo di Falco though immaterial compared to his party getting swamped by One Nation.  It is also not great for Bass independent George Razay.  It makes Bass slightly stronger for the Greens at state level and weaker for the Liberals, though a part of the Liberal weakness is hidden in a very high personal vote for Nationals candidate and former state Liberal MP John Tucker in the St Helens area.  

I reproduce Doug Chipman's map of the new boundaries from his original submission.   

11:45 My previous conclusions about impacts of this change on the southern seats are of course unaffected.  We are likely to in coming years see a game of musical chairs in the south as MPs based in the ex-Franklin part of neo-Clark, the ex-Clark part of neo-Lyons and the ex-Lyons part of what may be Tongerlongeter consider relocation (or in some cases retire).  

Ben Raue has posted new state estimates here.  I will be working on One Nation estimates for the new boundaries based off recent state polling as time permits.  

Various notes later:

* If the renaming of Franklin to Tongerlongeter proceeds Bass will be the sole surviving unchanged name in the state.  That would also be the first time the alphabetical order of the divisions has changed with none of the previous renamings (Darwin to Braddon, Wilmot to Lyons and Denison to Clark) affecting it.  

* Antony Green has conveniently added One Nation Reps primary vote estimates that find only a marginal increase in Clark (up 0.2), a very small decrease in Franklin (-0.1) and no change to one decimal anywhere else.  

* The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is objecting to the proposed Tongerlongeter on the grounds that he would be honoured by a "colonial construct" that he fought against (and they say died fighting against though perhaps died while fighting against would be more accurate.)  This reflects a culture clash - the redistribution process works by applying criteria and considering public submissions, but the TAC (which does not stand for by any means all Palawa people but is the major body in the south) issues resources of place names that anyone is free to use, but beyond that expects to be consulted.  

I am also seeing some right wing culture war type accounts warming up against the proposal, so it will probably be on Andrew Bolt by the weekend.  

DemosAU: Could Hare-Clark Help One Nation Shift Tasmania To The Right?

DemosAU Liberal 28 Labor 21 One Nation 21 Greens 14 IND 12 SF+F 2 Others 2

Seat estimate if these vote shares were recorded in election "held now" Lib 10 ALP 9 ON 8 Grn 4 IND 4

After a previous state poll which did not explicitly include One Nation, DemosAU have now included them in their Tasmanian state polling for the first time.  The party, which has been advertised for state registration, debuts on 21%, similar to the 19% it recorded in the May EMRS.  But if we add the Liberal and One Nation votes in the EMRS poll, we get 44%.  In the DemosAU poll, it is 49.

This raises a thought experiment.  Yes, we know One Nation is trashing the Liberal vote everywhere and that they would win seats from the Liberals in Tasmania right now.  But what if, by taking votes from Labor and increasing the overall right vote, they ended up taking a fourth seat for the right in Bass (where the right nearly won four last time anyway), a third seat for the right in Franklin (ditto) and - though this I think would be the hardest part - a third seat for the right in Clark?  (That's on the current boundaries; if the proposed new boundaries are accepted I expect similar scenarios to emerge).  

It's a very long way to the next election, or is it?  After the historic censuring of Premier Rockliff, as prospective Senator Stansfield notes in the latest Poll Position pod, at some point there will be another scandal.  And at that point Labor will have painted themselves into an even tighter corner than before. If they don't want to force another election that nobody wants and that now also floods the House with One Nation, they can either form a government nobody understands, or look comically impotent as they pass meaningless censure motions or do nothing.  

Tas Liberal Senate Turnover As Duniam And Askew To Go

I had a piece in drafts almost ready to release for weeks about this, but perhaps just as well I didn't since further developments have rendered the draft somewhat out of date.   The last few weeks have seen major news in the leadup to the expected 2028 half-Senate election with the Tasmanian Liberal ticket to lose both its incumbents.  Incumbent since 2019 Wendy Askew was to retire at the end of the term but will now resign in coming weeks while incumbent since 2016 Jonno Duniam will quit by the end of this year.  Askew's successor will get something like 20 months and Duniam's successor about 17 in the Senate in the lead-up to the next election, assuming it is on schedule and not early. 

The preselection currently underway is for the next election but I would expect that the top two candidates will inherit the seats of Askew and Duniam unless there are twists regarding availability.  

While it may seem disastrous for the Liberals to be go in with no incumbents, in some ways it is an advantage to them compared to if just one incumbent departed now.  The party now has more flexibility in planning a 2028 ticket from scratch without, for instance, feeling pressured to choose a female candidate as the sole winner of the vacancy race as might have been the case had only Askew departed. 

Essential Report Microblogging Disclaimers

Frequently I post federal polling results and calculations to the microblogging sites Twitter (X) and Bluesky (links to my accounts in sidebar); here is an example I posted today:

The standard items I include are the primary votes for all parties, any two-party preferred or Labor vs One Nation "shadow 2PP" issued by the pollster, and what I call "my conversion".  "My conversion" is a 2PP figure I get by applying my own estimate of 2025 election preference flows to the primary votes released by the pollster, and is the figure I use in my Labor vs Coalition 2PP aggregate and my Labor vs One Nation 2PP estimate, both of which can be seen on the sidebar together with a link to the methods page for them.   I have been including primary vote changes recently because of interest in whether One Nation is going up or down, but probably won't keep doing so for long.  (In fact the one shown has a typo in it, the Greens are down 1 not up 1).  

Hungry Lies: One Nation's Food Security Fibs

Please explain!

Yesterday I was posting some comments about how tweets on the Pauline Hanson twitter account mostly are not written by her, despite being frequently written in the first person.  Tweets signed "PH" or "-PH", the supposed signs that they are actually hers, seem to have largely dried up; after 23 in 2023 (mostly re the Voice) there were according to the advanced search function just two in 2024, none in 2025 and only two so far this year.  In the process I had a broader look at what else One Nation's social media was tweeting and came across a two-minute video for One Nation's current "Fire the Liar" campaign.  One claim, voiced in what appears to be Hanson's voice, caught my attention:

"Seven million Australians can only afford one meal per day.  In a country as prosperous as we used to be.  People are screaming out for change"

"Independent Australia": The Worst Website In Australian Politics?

In an article way back in 2015 I noted that the faux-progressive website "Independent Australia" was independent of "Quality control, consistency, accuracy and editorial skill."  Has it got better since?  Well no, if a recent attempt to soothe reader concerns about the One Nation surge is any guide, it seems to have got even worse.  I've decided to write a whole piece about this trainwreck to explain how abysmal IA's standards are and why nobody should be enabling their output in any way.

The most recent case is an article attributed - I have no idea whether correctly - to a Dr Jason Foster of RMIT.  Even the qualifications of the claimed author are something IA cannot seem to get straight.  The RMIT website states that Foster "holds a PhD in Media and Communication from RMIT, focusing on the representations of history in film and other media."  IA however claimed his PhD covered "media representations, politics and national consciousness", a claim that has since, without acknowledgement of error, been removed.

Before I deal with what is uniquely bad about this article and IA's failed attempt (?) to fix it, I will pick off a number of the low-hanging fruit, many of which are common myths about elections.

Begging For Debunking: A Silly Article Re Stafford Preferences

It was as sure as night follows day, as sure as daylight savings fading the curtains (oh wait) that the Stafford by-election result would see the Queensland right again beating the drum for optional preferences.  On cue we have an op ed by Morgan Begg from the IPA in the Courier-Mail trying to argue that compulsory preferential voting is some kind of aberration that has saved Labor's seat with the aid of obscure leftoids.  Begg's arguments contain a remarkable number of errors, but are also typical of the misguided and poorly debated push to return to full OPV in Queensland.

Begg is probably not responsible for the headline but for starters compulsory preferential voting is hardly an "Absurd Qld voting quirk".  Rather it is the standard form of preferential voting as it exists federally and currently (with very minor differences) in four states - and as it has existed federally, continuously, for 108 years.  (OK between 1984 and 1996 we did have a federal savings provision which allowed for a voter to deliberately exhaust their preferences, but few voters knew about that). 

Pre And Post Budget Federal Poll Roundup

2PP Aggregate 52.4 to Labor vs Coalition (term low, -0.8 since last week)

Shadow-2PP 52.9 to Labor vs One Nation (-0.6 since last week)

Labor would win election"held now" but most likely with only a small majority

This is my usual annual post about federal voting intention polling after the Budget, plus a summary of what's been happening in the months leading up.

The briefest summary of what happened in the months leading up is "not much".  In terms of my Labor vs Coalition two-party preferred aggregate, Labor dipped down to the high 52s in mid-January (off not a lot of polling at the time) but got back above 54 during Coalition leadership tensions in early February.  Since Angus Taylor replaced Sussan Ley Labor's 2PP has bobbed around the 53s with no real evidence of signal.

EMRS: The State Where No Party Has Votes

EMRS Lib 25 (-4) ALP 24 (+1) ON 19 (+5) GRN 14 (-1) IND 16 (+1) others 2 (-2)

Seat estimate off this poll if election "held now" Lib 8-9 ALP 10 ON 8 Grn 4-5 IND 4 others 0

The funniest thing about this week's EMRS poll is that it was taken before.  Before we found out on Friday that, in proof of assurances that TT Line couldn't possibly be insolvent because the government could just keep throwing it money, the embattled shipping company would be flicked a lazy half a billion dollars to keep it afloat.  Or perhaps I should better say, adrift.  Before we found out, also on Friday in federal budget week, that TasInsure, a "state-backed insurance company" floated out of nowhere in the 2025 election campaign in a desperate attempt to talk about anything at all except the stadium, had gone to the great bus mall in the ground and was being refashioned as a watchdog-shaped object.  And perhaps most significantly of all, before whatever lurks in this week's state Budget.

Stafford By-Election: Prospects and Live

Stafford (ALP 5.32%)

Luke Richmond (ALP) vs Fiona Hammond (LNP) and others

Cause of by-election: death of Jimmy Sullivan (ALP/IND)

ALP retain with c. 4.4% swing to LNP

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Monday:  Not much more to see

Casey Briggs has tweeted that he understands there are not more than (and probably less than) 2000 postals to come, so further changes to the current 51.2-48.8 margin will be in tenths of a percent if that.

Sunday: Excuses excuses...

Steven Miles has been quoted offering a bizarre excuse for his party's poor result, claiming it was due to One Nation not running and saying "We will never know what the result would have been if they had run and not directed their supporters to vote for the LNP,".  Stafford is one of One Nation's worst seats in the state, had they run I estimate they would have got about 8%.  Most of their voters would have preferenced the LNP anyway.  Care of the 2017 election we have a window on what happens when One Nation recommends preferences to the LNP in some seats and Labor in others - the flow difference was around 10-12%.  So for an open ticket, half that.  This argument if it works at all isn't worth half a percent, it might be worth a tenth of the swing if that.  In fact not all One Nation voters would have even been aware that their party recommended (not "directed") its voters to vote for the LNP, so probably even less.  And some of those who were aware would not have obeyed.

Miles has also referred to Fiona Hammond's local profile, but that was already present in the baseline since she was the candidate last time.  Indeed her time as a councillor was more recent then.  

Another excuse quoted by The Australian is “Right-of-centre voters, after the deal with One Nation, weren’t left with many alternatives in a field of nine candidates, and so we have seen a splintering of the vote amongst other left-of-centre parties.’’  But in fact there were four right wing candidates (up one from 2024) and the three minor righties between them got a 0.3% swing on the combined One Nation and Family First primary from 2024.  It is true that Labor's primary suffered from the extra competition on the left - but that does not explain half of the primary vote swing against Labor flowing through to 2PP swing as well.  

Farrer By-Election Live

Farrer (Lib vs IND 6.2%, Lib vs ALP 12.9%)

Raissa Butkowski (Lib) vs Michelle Milthorpe (IND), David Farley (ON) and others
Cause of by-election resignation of Sussan Ley (Lib)

CALLED (7:46 pm) Farley (One Nation) gain from Liberal

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Live comments will appear here from 6 pm - once counting gets going from around 7, refresh every 10 minutes or so for latest comments.

Monday 11th: We don't quite know the flows by party yet but what we can track is the proportion of Coalition voters whose votes would need to be switched by a different HTV recommendation for the Coalition parties' decision to preference One Nation to have decided the seat. Currently that number runs at 33.6% (this is Liberal and National combined).  As noted below, while normally it's quite feasible that an HTV decision would carry that much weight, in this case I think probably not.

Although David Farley has obviously won Farrer very easily the mathematical proof that he has done so will require a distribution of preferences meaning he's a fortnight or so from taking his seat.  See here.

The Urban Myth That "Sack Dan Andrews" Was A Labor Front

Does this look like a Labor front to you?

Group ticket voting in Victoria has again been in the news a lot lately - see my latest article about whether abolishing it would assist One Nation.  With this latest discussion has come a resurgence of a longrunning online urban myth concerning the shortlived Sack Dan Andrews party (or more formally Restore Democracy: Sack Dan Andrews Party) in the 2022 Victorian election.  The myth is that this party was set up to harvest the votes of people who hated former Victorian Premier Andrews and channel these votes back to Labor.  The reality is that while there is a disputed claim that Sack Dan Andrews (SDA) was a siphoning attempt of some sort, Labor gained no benefit from it anyway, and it had nothing to do with the party.  This article explores the reality of this short-lived party's preferences and its actual impact on the election in detail.  For those on twitter I also have a shorter version of events on a thread here.

Would Scrapping Group Ticket Voting In Victoria Help One Nation?

On this website I have frequently covered Victoria's ongoing failure to repeal the use of Group Ticket Voting in state Legislative Council elections.  Victoria is now the last state that still has this system, which has been scrapped everywhere else after being gamed by preference-harvesting.  In the current cycle the Electoral Matters committee in an outstanding report recommended the scrapping of Group Ticket Voting way back in July 2024, and the government has still not responded officially to that recommendation.  The clock is ticking in terms of time for the Victorian Electoral Commission to implement the changes required to move to a different system, and the Commission has said the decision must be made by August.  After recent issues involving service delivery by state electoral commissions I suggest the sooner the better.

Last week there was reporting by the Guardian this week that one Labor MP had said current Premier Jacinta Allan "had appeared reluctant to [scrap GTV] as it would benefit One Nation."  Separately I understand that the view that scrapping GTV would benefit One Nation is also espoused by some Labor lower house MPs.  Irrespective of who actually holds that view, this article is to explore this claim.  

The Guardian's article does not say why anyone holding this concern might hold it, and in the absence of any actual claimed mechanism it is not that easy to counter.  However there are at least three well known myths about how Group Ticket Voting is supposedly bad for One Nation in the modern age.  Here they are and here is why they are wrong.

Legislative Council 2026: Huon and Rosevears Live And Post-Count (Plus Nepean!)

Huon: Clare Glade-Wright (IND) elected, gain from Dean Harriss (IND)

Rosevears: Jo Palmer (Lib) retain. 

NEPEAN (VIC): CALLED 8:30 pm Marsh (Lib) retain

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Live comments (scrolls to top)

All numbers here are unofficial, check the TEC and VEC sites for official numbers

Refresh every 10 mins or so after 6:30 for latest updates

3:03 All over, Palmer wins 52.8-47.2 after a 79-21 split to Labor on the Greens exclusion. A very respectable result for Labor in the north despite losing.

12:00 Palmer didn't cross off Monson but needs a trivial 7.8% of Greens preferences. Based on the scrutineering estimates she will probably end up with a 52-54 2CP which is reasonably close. Maybe at or above the higher end because the Monson-McLennan prefs will be weaker for Labor.

The Amazing 2026 South Australian Election: Final Lower House Results And Poll Performance

SA 2026 ALP 34 (+5) Lib 5 (-9) ON 4 (+4) IND 4 (-)
(Changes from pre-election/notional; Labor gained two seats from Liberal during 2022-6 term)

Estimated 2PP ALP 57.89 vs Liberal (+3.3)

Estimated "Shadow 2PP" ALP 58.19 vs One Nation

The 2026 South Australian lower house was remarkable in so many ways.  It makes Queensland 1998 seem almost boring by comparison, except that Queensland 1998 was there first.  Maybe all elections are going to be like this now and this soon will not seem so unusual but if that's so my colleagues and I are going to have a very busy time in the future!

All manner of curious things happened here.  Finally, someone (Lou Nicholson in Finniss) won a state or federal seat from fourth on primaries; hooray we have lived to see it.  Both majors missed the 2CP in Stuart and Mount Gambier in the first such cases since Nicklin 2001.  The Liberal Opposition missed more 2CPs (29) than they made (18) and were outpolled by One Nation (unprecedented) but are still the Opposition.  Worse than that they missed nine 3CPs as well and even managed to finish fifth in Port Adelaide and Black - Black being a seat they won at the previous election!  And so on.  It was obvious this was going to be a very messy election - a little while out I thought how on earth will we ever make a pendulum from THIS - but aspects of it were even more unique than I saw coming.

Legislative Council 2026: Rosevears

ROSEVEARS (2020 margin Lib vs IND 0.57%)

This is my second guide to the Legislative Council this year.  My guide for Huon is here and my latest guide to voting patterns in the upper house is up.   

I expect to be doing live coverage of the Legislative Council elections on this site on election night, scheduled for Saturday May 2.  However, updates to this page in the lead-up will probably be less frequent than normal. 

The current numbers in the Council are three Liberal, three Labor, one Green and eight independents, with the independents ranging fairly evenly across the Green to Liberal spectrum.  Labor gives up one vote on the floor and in the committee stages because it holds the Presidency.  As the major parties frequently vote together, the Government has not had an especially difficult time of it in the upper chamber lately, most notably getting the hugely controversial Macquarie Point stadium through 9 votes to 5.  But that is not to say the Liberals get everything their own way, for instance having their legislation to wind up greyhound racing referred to an inquiry.

This year sees just two Legislative Council contests, being the first defence for independent Dean Harriss in Huon and likewise for Liberal Jo Palmer in Rosevears.  

Tasmania Redistribution: The Reaction

Yesterday the AEC released public feedback on the proposed radical redistribution as previously covered here (Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide).  Frankly I thought there might be more complaints than there were, but some of those that there are are pretty punchy.  Of the 90 distinct submissions received, exactly half by my count discussed the proposed boundaries at all, and of these I counted 14 as purely supporting the proposal (one or two noting some initial reluctance in doing so) and 31 objecting, nearly all of these proposing something substantially different if they proposed anything at all.

Predictably the most common objections concerned the condition of Lyons and especially the placement of Glenorchy in it.  Objectors raised Glenorchy's disconnection from the bulk of Lyons through the inclusion of Brighton in Franklin, argued that neo-Lyons was thematically incoherent, complained about the severing of Glenorchy from Greater Hobart and also objected to rural Tasmania being fragmented into majority urban seats.  Submission 34 by Mark James is a good representative of the objections:

"Under the proposed model, rural/regional voters will be outnumbered by city voters in all five electorates. There is no community of interest at all between Glenorchy, Sheffield, and St. Helens. - For a state with a famously decentralised population, in which the majority of the population live outside the capital city, voters in the capital city will form the bulk of three out of five electorates."

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2022-6

In the leadup to the 2026 Legislative Council elections for Huon and Rosevears (link TBA when I've written it) this article is my annual review of voting patterns on divisions in the upper house in the previous four years.  But before I get into it, I need to deal with some methods nerdery at the start.

Shy Division Losing

Some Labor MLCs aren't particularly fond of my findings, and they were especially defensive about a stat that in the small sample added to the mix last year Labor had voted with the Liberal Government 90% of the time.  (Fear not, in this year's sample it is 86%).  This even led to an attempt on election night live TV to shoot down (but not shag or marry) my methods in which it was falsely claimed that if there were thirty divisions on a single Bill I would include them all in my assessment.  Fortunately the incorrect claim has since been retracted.  

What in particular the Labor MLCs do not like goes to an unfortunate quirk of the LegCo's standing orders. When votes are called for on a motion they are initially taken on the voices.  The President or whoever is in the chair at the time declares a provisional result, eg "I think the ayes have it".  At this point someone can call for a division - but only if they are voting on the side that lost the call on the voices.  

In a case where the Government has no friends on a vote they might vote one way on the voices, but then not bother having that vote recorded to avoid embarrassment.  And in this case, while Labor voted the other way, there is nothing Labor can do here to cause a division such that them voting on the other side shows up in my figures.  This does sometimes happen, though no evidence that it happens often has been presented.  (I had thought this was in contrast to federal parliament because of something that happened in the same-sex marriage vote, but was mistaken - see comments.)

South Australia Postcount 2026: Finniss

FINNISS (Lib vs ALP 6.7%, Lib vs IND 0.7%)

David Basham (Lib) vs Lou Nicholson (IND) 

Nicholson wins from fourth position on primaries.  Unprecedented in state and federal elections

(Link to tallyboard thread)

The Victor Harbour/Goolwa seat of Finniss sees a similarly messy count to Kavel with four candidates with currently very similar primary votes, as I start this thread with the prepoll not yet in and sadly only 33.1% of enrolment counted.  It may be very different after prepoll and it was very different in 2022.  On the night Lou Nicholson was on 54.7% 2CP vs Basham and the doubt seemed to be would she make the final two or not.  She ended up making the final two but very poor numbers on prepolls and absents resulted in Basham winning (just) 50.7-49.3.  Now, the rematch ...

As with Kavel this is another seat where nobody has a quarter of the primary vote.  Currently One Nation's Greg Powell (23.6%) leads Basham by six votes, with Nicholson on 20.5% and Phoebe Redington (ALP) on 17.6%.  The Greens have 7.2% and the top of the ballot paper, and have recommended preferences to Nicholson.  The others are Bron Lewis (a tealish sounding independent on 4.3%), Animal Justice 1.6%, Aus Family 1.2% Fair Go 0.4%.  

South Australia Postcount 2026: Hammond (And Ngadjuri)

Hammond (Lib 5.1%)
Robert Roylance (ON) vs Simone Bailey (ALP) vs Adrian Pederick (Lib)
Roylance expected to win

(Link to tallyboard thread)

The rural lower Murray seat of Hammond was one of those that stood out in pre-election modelling as being a seat on a relatively low Liberal vs ALP margin but nonetheless being apparently fertile ground for One Nation.  And this looks like this is how things have panned out.  As I start this article Simone Bailey (Labor) holds a thin lead with 27.5% over Robert Roylance (One Nation) on 27.0% with incumbent Adrian Pederick in third on 22.1%.  The most significant preference source is independent Airlie Keen on 10.4%.  Keen ran competitively in 2022 but there has been a large swing against her with the rise of One Nation.  The rest: the Greens 4.5% Legalise Cannabis 3.3% FF 1.9% Animal Justice 1.4% Lucas Hope (IND) 1.0% Aus Family 0.5% United Voice 0.4% Fair Go 0.1%.  Yes there is a candidate in this seat who actually at present has 27 votes, their presence on the ballot paper probably costing thousands of dollars in staffing costs.

South Australia Postcount 2026: Kavel

KAVEL (Retiring IND vs Lib 25.4, notional Liberal vs ALP 3.5)

Matt Schultz (IND) vs David Leach (ALP) vs Bradley Orr (Lib) - Schultz expected to win

Link back to summary page

Sunday 22nd 11:50am: I really wanted to wait til the prepolls were in before unrolling postcount threads for the messy seats, because prepolls often put scenarios to bed.  But as it's taking a while to get there on Sunday, I will start the Kavel thread before that point (and probably the Finniss one too) and if things do later simplify then this is at least a time capsule of how insane this seat looked.  

The problem with the Mt Barker / Adelaide Hills seat is simple; nobody has any votes.  The succession war for the former conservative Liberal turned indie/Speaker/Minister Dan Cregan has produced a splatter of primaries with nobody with even a quarter of the vote (I'm wondering if this is some kind of record for a mainland state seat if it persists).  With just 39.5% of enrolment counted, Labor's David Leach leads on 23.9%, Cregan's nominal successor Matt Schultz has 20.7%, Christiaan Loch of One Nation has 19.7% and the Liberals' Bradley Orr has 17.3%.  The Greens have 12.8% and the detritus (ballot clutter makes good snail food) is Family First 1.7% Animal Justice 1.6% Real Change 1.1% Australian Family 0.5% Jacob van Raalte (IND) 0.5% and Fair Go 0.2%.  

South Australia 2026: Postcount Summary, Links Hub and Basic 2CP Contests

SEATS WON ALP 34 Lib 5 ON 4 IND 4

Seats covered

Finniss (Liberal) - Liberal vs One Nation vs IND, IND has won from fourth

Kavel (IND vacancy) - Labor vs IND vs One Nation, IND stayed in top two and won easily

Hammond (Liberal) - ON win staying in top two and beating Labor on preferences

Heysen (Liberal) - Liberal vs ALP or Green, Greens narrowly missed final two with Liberal defeating Labor (Liberal probably would have won anyway)

Light (Labor) - close but Labor win

Mackillop (notional Liberal) - One Nation narrow win over Liberal

Narungga (IND) - One Nation appears to have very narrowly won subject to recount.

Morphett (Liberal) - narrow Labor win

Ngadjuri  One Nation win.  

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL  5 ALP 3 ON 2 Lib 1 Green

South Australia 2026 Postcount: Heysen

HEYSEN (Lib 2.6%)

Josh Teague (Lib) vs Marisa Bell (Labor) and Genevieve Dawson-Scott (Green)

Teague very narrowly leads Bell, but Bell not sure of making the final two.  No direct information on Liberal vs Green flows

Link back to summary page

The first of my postcount threads focuses on the Adelaide Hills seat of Heysen, which was the Greens' biggest target seat at this election.  What do you get if you take Prahran 2014 and throw in a One Nation candidate with 14% of the vote?  Well something like whatever this is.  Because of the slow count in other threads and the relatively settled picture for the night in Heysen I've started writing this one on the night, and it will run ahead of the tally board thread.

South Australia 2026 Live

START POSITION*: LABOR 29 LIB 14 IND 4

Labor re-elected with several seat gains.  Liberals and One Nation fighting for opposition status with Liberals currently best placed.  

Seats apparently changing (not all absolutely confirmed):

Liberal to Labor: Colton, Hartley, Unley, Morialta

IND to One Nation: Narungga

Notional Liberal to One Nation: Mackillop

Incumbents in trouble:

Liberal vs Labor: Morphett

Messy seats: 

Hammond (Liberal - exclusion order issue, Liberals currently trailing to One Nation)

Finniss (Liberal - Unclear if Nicholson makes 3CP or whether she defeats Liberal or One Nation if so)

Heysen (Liberal - Labor narrowly leads Greens for making 3CP, winner competes with Liberals for seat)

Kavel (IND - Schultz needs to make final two to win but could potentially be pushed to third behind Labor and One Nation)

Ngadjuri  (Liberal - unclear which of Liberal or One Nation is third, the other probably winning)

In doubt (not necessarily complete list)

Light (Labor) vs One Nation

South Australia 2026: Final Polls Still Have Liberals Third

Average of final week polls ALP 37.1% Liberal 17.6 One Nation 23.3 Greens 11.2 others 10.8

If polls are accurate, Labor wins election easily making several seat gains, with Liberals and One Nation probably winning a few seats each.  Independents could win a few to several seats.

The 2026 SA election has been a weird one for polls.  There's been a very decent amount for a state election, but there were four polls tightly clustered around the start of the formal campaign, Morgan a little later, then nothing til the final days.  Also while the early polls had quite a range of figures, the last-week polls by Fox&Hedgehog, YouGov and DemosAU came out with almost identical primaries.  All have Labor on 37-38%, Liberals 17-19%, and One Nation 21-23%.  Newspoll stood out a bit more with a 40 for Labor and a miserable 16 for the Liberals.  

In my previous article I outlined a way of using the 2022 Legislative Council results to roughly look at where the Liberals and One Nation might make the final two if the polling is accurate, and assuming a swing that is two-thirds proportional and one-third uniform.  I have a few more observations on this model based on the vote share average at the head of this post.  

Legislative Council 2026: Huon

HUON (IND vs ALP 2.55%)

This is my first guide for the Tasmanian Legislative Council for this year.  An assessment of Legislative Council voting patterns has been updated and a guide to Rosevears has also finally appeared.

I expect to be doing live coverage of the Legislative Council elections on this site on election night, scheduled for Saturday May 2.  However, updates to this page in the lead-up will probably be less frequent than normal. 

The current numbers in the Council are three Liberal, three Labor, one Green and eight independents, with the independents ranging fairly evenly across the political spectrum.  Labor gives up one vote on the floor and in the committee stages because it holds the Presidency.  As the major parties frequently vote together, the Government has not had an especially difficult time of it in the upper chamber lately, most notably getting the hugely controversial Macquarie Point stadium through 9 votes to 5.  But that is not to say the Liberals get everything their own way, for instance having their legislation to wind up greyhound racing referred to an inquiry.

This year sees just two Legislative Council contests, being the first defence for independent Dean Harriss in Huon and likewise for Liberal Jo Palmer in Rosevears.  

Nightcliff By-Election (This May Be A Very Short Thread)

Just a quick thread on the Nightcliff by-election (NT) caused by the resignation of the Greens' Kat Macnamara. NT elections don't have many booths and at present we're waiting for the big prepoll which is most of the count, with Suki Dorras-Walker (Grn) leading Ed Smelt (ALP) by 22 votes 2CP 536-514 on the 2CP votes counted so far., with a small number counted only to primary  The big EVC could put this one to bed once it reports on primaries and 2CP... or it could be on we go.  

8:05 The primaries from the big prepoll are in and Dorras-Walker 1220 leads Smelt 1051 Paudel (CLP)  738 Scott (IND) 629.  With almost 1000 votes from Paudel and Scott to add, if the flow so far continues Labor will move to a substantial lead.

9:30 Long wait for the bomb to drop ... (apparently the count is done but has not been posted yet)

10:40 Finally up and subject to checking if the votes so far counted it appears that Labor have won as Smelt is 141 ahead after preferences.  Margins over 100 in general stick in the NT.

Sunday: If Labor's lead holds this will be another relatively rare case of a major party beating a non-major from behind on preferences. But this particular scenario (Labor beats Greens on Coalition preferences) is becoming more common.

Monday: A check count has increased Smelt's lead to 158 and confirmed that he will win. A very welcome urban gain for NT Labor after being reduced to four bush MPs in 2024.

Tasmania Redistribution: Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide

 

The much-awaited proposal redistribution of Tasmania's federal (and by normal standards, state) electoral boundaries has been published.  I discussed the challenges facing the Redistribution Committee in my piece Clark Must Expand, But Where?  In the draft proposal, the winner is "south".

The Committee (note, it is not correct to refer to the Committee as "the AEC" as two members are AEC and two are not) has proposed one of the more radical options that was considered in the process.  Somewhat against my expectations based on the large movement of electors, they've decided that the further creep of Clark into Kingston, cutting parts further south off from their urban centre, really was unsustainable and it is now time to bite the bullet.  They have recommended the southern boundaries of Clark, Lyons and Franklin as proposed by former Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman (there was a similar proposal by current Clarence Councillor James Walker).  Clark becomes Hobart City, Kingborough and the Huon Valley, Franklin becomes Clarence, Brighton, Sorell and the lower and central east coast and Lyons becomes, well, whatever that is.  In the north they've gone for the orthodox approach of Blackstone Heights and Prospect Vale into Bass, so I don't think anybody got their exact suggestion in full.  

Why Did One Nation Win 11 Seats In Queensland 1998 But None In 1998 Federal?

The One Nation party (which I am on the verge of restyling Wuss Nation after its sobbing about its poor supporters being traumatised by filling out ballot papers) has been attacking compulsory preferential voting in the leadup to the South Australian election.

Linked into this I came across a narrative from Pauline Hanson which I thought deserved detailed examination.  Interviewed on Sky (and yet again, where else) Hanson told the tale of how in 1998 her party won eleven seats from scratch in the 1998 Queensland election and noted that it was optional preferential voting.  Then she moved on to the 1998 federal election where although her party won over a million votes, all the other parties recommended preferences against One Nation and they didn't win any seats.  Famously she lost Blair where the major parties cross-recommended against her.  

She doesn't in this excerpt mention what became of those eleven Queensland seats.  Every single one of those MPs quit the party or the parliament by the end of the 1998-2001 term, though One Nation did retain two of those seats and win a third with different candidates.    But my interest here is, is there really any causal link between the current OPV/CPV debate and what happened in those two elections?  Or are the explanations different?  A warning that this article is very numbery and has been graded Wonk Factor 4/5.

Tall Cories: Bernardi's Bunkum About Preferences

I was going to leave a comment about this until the next SA roundup but I feel that Cory Bernardi's nonsense about compulsory preferential voting should be dealt with a little faster than that.  Normally writing a whole article about what may well have just been a two-word misspeak might be considered mountain/molehill territory.  However Bernardi's statement has been reported uncritically by at least one media source, circulated by the party, and strangest by far, given a free pass on social media by some people who have brains.  

One Nation have also claimed off the back of Bernardi's comments that "we will make preference deals a thing of the past by giving voters the choice to distribute their preferences or not. "  But in fact optional preferencing doesn't do that.  It reduces the rate of deals as some parties choose not to recommend preferences, but many parties do still recommend preferences (which is what people often mean when they say "preference deals") and may negotiate about these decisions (actual deals).  There were several accusations about "preference deals" in the 2023 NSW state election.  

EMRS: What Happens When You Take A Mess And Then Throw In One Nation?

EMRS Lib 29 (-5) ALP 23 (-2) Green 15 (-2) IND 15 (-4) ON 14 (new) others 4 (-1)

Seat estimate off this poll if election "held now" Lib 10-13 ALP 9-10 Grn 5 ON 4 IND 4-5 SFF 0-1

EMRS have released basic details of the first Tasmanian voting intention poll to include One Nation in the readout (I will add a link to the full report when it is up).  One Nation are in the process of registering for state elections but are not registered yet.  This follows a federal poll for the state they released on Friday.  

The addition of One Nation has immediately seen them record a substantial 14%, but this is well below the 24% they recorded in the Tasmanian federal poll, with the Liberal vote in particular holding up much better.  One Nation's gains have come from across the board, but especially from a government that was already down on its election result in the previous poll, meaning that when this poll is compared with the election, most of the 14 points is at the expense of the Government which is down 11.  Labor and the Greens are not so far off their state marker, Independents may in effect be down somewhat given that Tasmanian state polls offering a generic "independent" option tend to overestimate election support for independents by about 4 points.

South Australia 2026: What Can The Right Still Win?

Polling for SA election is very lopsided with right very fragmented

Estimate if Newspoll is correct: approx 1 Liberal and 3 One Nation seats

Off YouGov: approx 4 Liberal and 1-2 One Nation seats

Polling may moderate by election day

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I've been hoping for enough material to start substantial coverage of the South Australian election and it's finally arrived with polls by Newspoll and YouGov.  Prior to that there had been a string of extremely lopsided polls last year, and a Fox&Hedgehog poll in a similar vein early last week.  The YouGov poll pretty much replicates Fox&Hedgehog's finding that the conservative side is split in two with the Liberals bleeding greatly to One Nation while Labor enjoys a massive lead.  The Newspoll is even worse for the Liberals and could (if it happened) even wipe them out completely.  My estimate is that on average for the Newspoll voting intentions the Liberals would win one seat and One Nation about three, and for the YouGov poll that the Liberals might manage three or four and One Nation just one or two; it's possible there will be about as many (or more) independents as right-party MPs.  However there is a lot still to unfold with where One Nation support goes during the campaign and whether the Liberals can improve.  

What is suggested by the polls so far really aint supposed to happen.  The Malinauskas government is only at the end of its first term, but it is federally dragged, and not even by a first term federal government at that.  John Bannon in 1985 was the last State Premier to get a seat share swing at all in that circumstance.  But these are incredible times in polling and Peter Malinauskas is very popular (with a +40 Newspoll netsat).  At the same time we have what looks like a severe disruption if not a realignment on the right nationally and the SA Libs are a disaster zone.   One has to roll one's eyes repeatedly at news that "Liberal strategists" are hoping for a sympathy vote they don't deserve and trying to argue that a viable opposition is needed.  That worked so well for the similarly hapless outfit that was reduced to two seats in WA 2021.  

Farrer By-Election 2026

Farrer (Lib vs IND 6.2%, Lib vs ALP 12.9%)
By-Election 9 May
Cause of by-election resignation of Sussan Ley (Lib)

The rolling of Sussan Ley as leader of a floundering Liberal Party has led to a fascinating by-election for her seat of Farrer.  This guide will be updated from time to time with any polling news and with items of interest re candidates etc.  I will be providing live coverage on the night of May 9.

Farrer

Much of the electoral history of Farrer has been told in Antony Green's post here.  It has had just four MPs since 1949, three Liberals and a National.  Until very recently it had only ever been of the slightest interest when vacant.  Tim Fischer easily won the seat for the Nationals at the 1984 general election.  On his retirement in 2001 Sussan Ley gained it for the Liberals by 206 votes after preferences, the result being so close only because Labor ran and recommended preferences to the Nationals.

The seat has never been 2PP-competitive, only sneaking into technical 2PP-marginal territory by a handful of votes in 1972.  It saw its first serious independent attempt when Albury Mayor Kevin Mack ran against Ley in 2019.  This attempt was so hyped that betting agencies gave Mack a roughly even chance of winning but Ley won very easily, clearing 50% on primaries with a 60.9% 2CP.  

Until the 2025 election Ley had the longest active streak of wins on first preferences in the parliament (seven) but the challenge from Voices of Farrer and Climate200 endorsed Michelle Milthorpe severely dented Ley's primary vote and Ley finished up with only a 6.2% margin after preferences.  However, Farrer remained one of the most conservative seats in the country, ranking 11th on Coalition House of Reps 2PP down from 8th in 2022.  Some might think its 2PP being near the top of the list was down to Ley's personal vote but this is actually not true at all; on above the line Senate 2PP Farrer was in fact the Coalition's fourth best seat nationwide. 

Who's in the mix?

There are five four possibly competitive forces in Farrer.  Comments re candidates will be added when known but this is not intended as a candidate guide.   All candidates can be seen in a debate here.

* Liberals.  Contesting.  Justin Clancy (MP for Albury (Lib 16.3%)) was reported as a possible Liberal contender (setting up a scenario where he and Helen Dalton might both resign their state seats to run) but isn't running.  The candidate is Raissa Butkowski, an Albury councillor.

* Nationals.  Contesting.  The Nationals candidate is Brad Robertson, a former military commander.

* One Nation.  Contesting.  Sooner than they might have liked, One Nation faces a potential get off the pot moment.  If their national polling is still as high as at present following the change in Liberal leadership then they would be expected to poll strongly in this by-election and failure to do so would damage their momentum and raise some questions about their standing in the polls. The One Nation candidate is David Farley, a prominent agricultural businessman.  As is common with One Nation candidates he already has a problematic past comment that has resurfaced - but this one is also attracting more endorsements than most.  Oh, more trouble - he claims it was an accident.  (Three times?)

Further debate broke out with news that Farley had sought to join and run for Labor in 2022 and had also donated to them as recently as 2023, although this seems to result more than anything from a dislike of the Coalition.  One Nation supporters have been defensive about this but the fact is that the party has a woeful defection rate and their habit of slurping up other parties' rejects is an obvious contributing factor to this.  

In the final days of the campaign perceptions that Farley is going to become an independent at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, if elected are growing.  

* Milthorpe (IND).  Contesting.  Michelle Milthorpe immediately announced she would run for Farrer again.  

Also-rans 

Interesting by-elections often attract large fields of uncompetitive micro-party and obscure independent candidates, some of whom are often paper candidates from nowhere near the electorate.  

* The Greens' candidate is Richard Hendrie. 

* Family First (v 2) immediately announced they would re-run Rebecca Scriven who polled 2.15% in 2025. I have not been able to verify from her S44 declaration whether Scriven is eligible for election or not - though she plausibly could be - as this apparently depends on her year of birth.

* Gerard Rennick People First announced they were running, to the vivid interest of nobody; they came last with 2.02% in 2025.  Their candidate, James Bonniefin, as best I can tell has never lived in the electorate.

* Sustainable Australia is running Lucas James Ellis.

* Gary Pappin is an independent and a councillor on Murray River Council.  He has experience in mining, farming and water resource management.  Pappin is a Mutthi Mutthi man who has had a significant role in management of the Mungo National Park and the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area.  Pappin doesn't seem to be any kind of easily classifiable independent, I would probably have put him under group 5 (others) in my federal election article.

* Legalise Cannabis are running Aimee Lee Pearson.  It appears she is ineligible for election as her S44 checklist says that she has applied to renounce New Zealand citizenship but has not received the renunciation yet.  

* Roger Woodward is a serial independent candidate with a pretty random collection of policies who has also run in Cook and Berowra.  He does not live in the electorate (in fact he lives in Hornsby in Berowra).  

* The Shooters Fishers and Farmers candidate is Peter Sinclair.

Not Contesting

* Dalton (IND) Helen Dalton is the state MP for the district of Murray, which is the western end of Farrer.  She won the seat in 2019 as an endorsed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate but running a largely independent-style campaign.  She quit said party in 2022 over water issues, and was returned as an independent in 2023 with an outright majority in a field of ten candidates.  Dalton was already canvassing a possible run for Farrer in 2028.  She would have to resign her state seat to contest.  On Mar 6 Dalton confirmed she would not contest.  

* Labor:  I did not believe Labor could have be competitive if they ran and I could not see much reason for them to risk embarrassment by doing so, so I was not surprised they decided not to bother.  Independents will miss that portion of their Labor preferences that comes from how to vote cards, but it is also possible in such a crowded field that an ALP run could have squeezed out independents and stopped them winning.

* Jordi Queiruga (IND): Announced running, has notified me he has withdrawn, website taken down.

* The unregistered Riverina State Party (which supports a new state covering the Victorian/NSW border areas) expressed interest in running but this may have been contingent on its registration being approved in time, which didn't happen.  The party submitted a list of 1646 putative members to the AEC in late October 2025 but has not been advertised yet.  The advertising phase followed by AEC assessment takes more than a month and party registration froze once the writ was issued for the by-election.  (I've heard they may have passed AEC checking prior to advertising.)

Prospects

This section will be edited where needed to update it.  As of 15 March we have a messy four-way battle where it is not obvious who the final two will be.    The AEC will have a challenging task in picking which candidate pair to use for the notional two-candidate count on the night (they may go with Liberal vs Milthorpe just because those were the final two last time, though there has been one poll suggesting One Nation could make the final two.)

Farrer is a relatively strong seat for One Nation, but not super strong.  Their Reps primary of just an average 6.6% is misleading because it would have been affected by Milthorpe and the relatively large field.  In the Senate, One Nation polled 9.96% in Farrer, compared to a NSW total of 6.06%.  If their national polling swing is real and flows through to Farrer they should be looking at a primary of at very least high 20s and probably much more (because One Nation tend to get inflated swings in strong areas) - but it's not that simple.

At the 2025 election, minor right preferences did not assist Ley vs Milthorpe, with One Nation, Family First and GRPF breaking only slightly to her and Trumpet of Patriots and Shooters Fishers and Farmers preferences breaking to Milthorpe.  This suggests a lot of the voters in Farrer while anti-Labor aren't wildly pro-Coalition either and are looking for any alternative ahead of the majors (something we also saw with strong ON flows to independents in the 2022 SA election).  I'd expect on that basis that any independents that run and One Nation are to a more than obvious degree fishing in the same pond.  Perhaps this will make it hard for One Nation to get a really high primary - but it is also a problem for the independent.  

It is possible that Milthorpe could get a large enough primary from many of the seat's non-conservative voters to lead on primaries, with the question then being how strong are the flows between the conservative parties and in what order they are knocked out.  Butkowski seems a good choice by the Liberals to attempt to cover off against Milthorpe.  

Dalton would have been a dangerous opponent on preferences had she run and made the final two, but with a splintered vote and having to sit between Milthorpe and One Nation it could have been hard for her to do so.

The South Australian election showed generally not very good performances by rural/regional independents, with One Nation polling fully as well as their polling implied.  

All kinds of modelling and calculations may be entered into as to what might occur here but in a rural electorate and with this being a by-election and not a general, I suspect a lot of it will be about candidate quality and the outcome could therefore be quite different from any modelling attempt.  

Polls etc

Single-seat polling is unreliable.

An Australia Institute seat poll (presumably a uComms poll) was reported on 9 Mar taken sometime between 5 and 9 Mar with "One Nation topped the count at 28.6 per cent of the total, followed by independent Ms Milthorpe (23.3 per cent), the Liberal Party (19.1 per cent), Labor (not running - 9 per cent), undecided voters (8.6 per cent) and the Greens (3.9 per cent), and the remaining 2.3 per cent favoured another party or candidate."  The news.com.au report omitted a feeble 5.2% for the Nationals.  While the media report said 64.1% of the non-One Nation voters would not consider voting for them at all ... which doesn't necessarily mean they won't preference them.  After reallocating Labor and undecided thanks to the full poll report (with a few minor design issues not helping) I estimate the primaries at One Nation 31.4 Milthorpe 29.4 Liberal 21.7 National 7.4 Green 5.4 other 2.7 (an underestimate as other was excluded from the undecided voter follow-up), unaccounted for 1.8.  Note that Milthorpe's support could be overestimated by her being named, so there's actually a good chance here that the final two would be One Nation vs Liberal, making it possible the Liberals could retain on Milthorpe and Greens preferences.  As with many uComms polls the 18-34 age group is curiously conservative looking in this poll.  A question in the form "who do you least want to win" gets One Nation 37.1 Milthorpe 29.5 Liberal 22.2 National 11.2. 

A second uComms commissioned by Milthorpe and taken April 9-10 has One Nation ahead - on raw primaries ON 30.9 Milthorpe 30 Lib 16.1 Nat 7.1 Greens 3.8 FF 1.2 SAP 0.1 (yay!) Others 2.9 undecided 7.9, coming out to 52.7-47.3 to One Nation by respondent preferences (which I would expect to underestimate the margin because of Coalition how to vote cards favouring One Nation).  The sample has Farley 14.6 points ahead on primaries of male voters with Milthorpe 12 points ahead among female voters.  I have not found a distribution of the undecided.  The major candidates were named.  One Nation's social media account has misleadingly published the breakdown for male voters as if it was the overall poll.

Sky News said that "leaked" (by which they mean given away) Liberal polling had One Nation winning easily but provided no further details, other than it sounds like One Nation are ahead on primaries.  

In non-poll news:

A projection tweeted by the 6 News @auspoll6 Twitter account (with One Nation very narrowly winning) was incorrectly claimed to be a poll by some accounts despite being explicitly labelled as a projection based off Newspoll and as not being a by-election prediction.  The tweet has now been deleted following criticism, including from Pyxis who conduct Newspoll.  What was not stated in the tweet was that the projection (with One Nation narrowly beating Liberal) was not even a uniform swing projection off Newspoll but was a projection of what would happen in Farrer if a general election was held now based on various (as far as I'm aware) unpublished assumptions about how the primary votes found by Newspoll would be reflected in particular seats.  There is a danger even if someone grasps that such a model is a projection of them thinking that there is one particular way to project a seat off a national poll, or even that projecting a seat off a national poll is any kind of reliable exercise.  

Other projections such as MRP outputs are of limited value too.  MRP outputs are meant to be collectively indicative of groups of seat types, and not reliable for a single seat at the best of times.  But also they are not designed for by-elections.  For a by-election what we want to see is seat-specific polling, preferably neutrally commissioned, transparent and certainly without any "aided vote" preambles.

Betting

Amusingly, seat betting has been seen.  Seat betting is not reliably predictive.  As of 16 Feb an early offering was NAT 2.00 Ind 2.99 ON 4.50 Lib 4.75 ALP 34 Greens 67.  

23 Feb: Ind 2.50 Nat 2.60 ON 3.50 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

5 Mar: Ind 1.91 Nat 3.40 ON 4.33 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

As of 13 Mar the above odds hadn't moved, a different site had Ind 1.65 ON 2.75 Nat 4.50 Lib 8.00.  On 15 Mar Ind was out to 1.75 and Nat in to 3.75 on that one.  

16 Mar: Second market now at Ind 1.90 ON 2.40 Nat 3.75 Lib 9.00. 

18 Mar: Both markets similar now: Ind 2 ON 2.60 Nat 5.10 Lib 8.00 vs Ind 1.85 ON 2.5 Nat 5.50 Lib 9.00 

24 Mar: 1.95/2.39/6.40/8.50 vs 1.80/2.30/7.50/8.00

8 April: One is offline, the second is 1.75/1.95/9/13, so the market increasingly sees this as a Milthorpe vs One Nation race.

24 April: Not sure when it finally flipped (had done so by April 20) but now ON 1.40 vs 2.80 and 1.38/3.10

30 April: 1.33/3.30/19/51.

7 May: 1.18/4.75/19/51.  Another site had 1.09 vs 6.50